In 1974, an Indian Bollywood Hindi-language film was released with the title Roti Kapda Aur Makaan (English translation: Food, Clothing, And Shelter), referring to the bare minimums of life. If it were to be released today, the director of the movie would need to add the word Internet to the title because access to the Internet has become a necessity for many people over the past decade.

In a recently published Forrester ForecastView report titled “Forrester Research World Online Population Forecast, 2012 To 2017 (Global),” Forrester found that 2.4 billion people across the world use the Internet on a regular basis — i.e., at least once a month — from home, school, work, or any other location via a PC or a non-PC (mobile) Internet access device. This is expected to grow to 3.5 billion by 2017, representing nearly half of the 2017 overall world population of 7.4 billion. Our forecast provides the details of the Internet population in 56 countries across five regions.